WorkPuzzle

Looking in Your Neighbor’s Windows: How Much Effort Does it Take to Produce a Hire?

Comparing ourselves to others is something human beings have been doing since the beginning of time.  At some level, we all need validation that our efforts are on par with those who have similar jobs and responsibilities.

If you are responsible for recruiting agents, have you ever sought to compare yourself to other offices within your company?  Is your company doing as well as your competitors?  How does your recruiting performance stack up to companies in other markets?  These are all important questions.  Hopefully you’ve spent some time contemplating and researching this issue.

One of the things you may not have studied is how your recruiting efforts compare to other industries.  Is it possible that the real estate industry operates at one level, but the insurance industry operates on a higher performance plane?  On the other hand, you could be pleasantly surprised to learn that your hiring systems and performance far surpass typical performance in the medical industry.

Of course, this type of data is very difficult to collect and analyze.  So, when I came across the question below and subsequent answer on this topic in the Electronic Recruiting Exchange (ERE), I thought it was worth sharing.  The contributor is Richard Newsom, the VP of Recruiting Operations for Fifth Third Bank, and the question is shared by an anonymous reader who works for a publically-traded company.  Here is the exchange:

"Question:

I manage our company’s recruiting organization.  We are a four billion dollar company, publicly traded, and employ 4,000+ employees.  I have a team of seven full-time recruiters and just recently brought on two contract recruiters.  Here is my challenge:

I am being asked to show that my team is at capacity, and what it would take to complete the recruiting team to address the business needs (requisitions).  When I joined the company two years ago, we had 15 recruiters.  In the last two years we have had three reductions in force, hiring freezes, etc.  It made sense for the company to decide that we could downsize the recruiting organization.  Last year with seven recruiters, we filled 774 requisitions.  Is there anyone who could help me build a business case that we are working at capacity?

Answer:

There are many different ways to approach this, and not every solution works for every company.  I’d like to discuss one particular approach….  Using your example of 774 hires (and making some broad assumptions that you’ll need to validate)…

Assumptions:

• We need to hire 774 people in 2011
• 90% of the offers extended result in a hire
• 25% of the interviews conducted result in an offer
• 80% of the candidates submitted to a hiring manager get interviewed
• It takes 1.5 hours to source a candidate worthy of submitting to a hiring manager
• Each recruiter has 2.5 hours per day dedicated to sourcing candidates for submission
• There are seven recruiters dedicated to recruiting throughout 2011 — thus seven recruiters X 2.5 hours per day for sourcing = 17.5 sourcing hours per day total

Calculations:

• 774 hires needed/90% acceptance rate = 860 offers need to be extended
• 860 offers/25% offer rate = 3,440 candidates need to be interviewed
• 3,440 interviews/80% interview rate = 4,300 candidates who need to be submitted to hiring managers
• 4,300 submissions X 1.5 hours per candidate = 6,450 sourcing hours needed
• 6,450 sourcing hours needed/17.5 hours per day = 369 business days to source all candidates (516 calendar days)

Using these assumptions, it would take your team of seven recruiters nearly a year and a half to fill all 774 positions….”

Hopefully, this recruiter will be able to take this information and fend off another reduction of staff among her recruiting group. Even if she maintains here current staffing level, I’m not sure I’d want to work there—it sounds like a death march!

But, that’s not the point.  Through his assumptions, Richard Newsom has given us some insight into hiring practices in the banking industry.  In essence, we have the opportunity to look in his office window and see the recruiting conversion metrics of one of the most prominent companies in the financial industry.

How do these benchmarks compare to what you experience in your company?  For high performing companies in the real estate industry, we commonly see an interview-to-hire ratio of 25% to 35%.  While this is similar to Newsom's bank, their candidate-to-interview ratio is very high compared to most real estate companies.  To secure 3,440 interviews, most real estate companies would need to source 15,000 to 20,000 candidates.  Analyzing the hours dedicated to each task is even more interesting, but I’ll leave that for you to consider on your own...

The bottom line is that we all need goals in order to exceed.  If these goals are set with a limited exposure to what others are accomplishing, we may not reach high enough.  I encourage you to use all the information you can possibly collect to establish your personal expectations, and then push yourself to succeed.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

What Can You Learn from the Jet Blue Flight Attendant’s Tirade?

Unless you've been vacationing on a remote island with no contact with the outside world, you’ve no doubt heard about the bizarre behavior of Steven Slater last week.  He is the now infamous Jet Blue flight attendant who decided to grab two beers and take the short cut home from work.  (If you need a quick refresher on what happened, here is a quick video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mNRhlrBqOc )

Since his arrest, something strange has happened.  Slater has become a hero.  Take a look at this partial summary from Yahoo News:

“And as is the case with anyone who stumbles upon sudden infamy in the digital age, Slater has been the subject of much discussion in the past week.  As David Allan Coe advocated in song, he took that job and shoved it.  Here's a random sampling of reactions from around the Web:

• Gawker's Maureen O'Connor labeled him a 'hero' for 'doing that which everyone who has traveled by airplane dreams.'  She added, 'Unfortunately, his heroism may result in criminal mischief and trespassing charges.'
• New York magazine's Chris Rovzar predicted that hero status for Slater is imminent:  'You know, it's amazing you don't read stories like this more frequently.  You'd assume that, just as passengers periodically go berserk, so would flight attendants.  Prediction:  This guy becomes some sort of folk hero.'
• The New York Daily News' Joanna Molloy sympathized with Slater's plight, which she thinks is 'part of the frustration all over the country as employees take pay cuts and have to do double the workload as they take on the responsibilities of their laid-off co-workers.'
• The Awl's Alex Balk is ready to raise a glass in celebration of Slater, writing, 'I think even the most airline-phobic among us can sort of look at his great escape and offer a silent cheer.'
• In a recent issue of the New Yorker, essayist David Sedaris wrote about air travel and the tendency for humans to behave at their worst on planes and in airports.  'We're forever blaming the airline industry for turning us into monsters,' Sedaris wrote.  'But what if this is who we truly are, and the airport's just a forum that allows us to be our real selves, not just hateful but gloriously so?' "

(To read the summary with all the links to the original articles, please visit:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100810/bs_yblog_upshot/rogue-jetblue-flight-attendant-being-hailed-as-a-modern-american-working-class-hero )

Why is it that so many people have connected with Slater’s outburst?  As I’ve read the articles mentioned above and others, the consensus seems to be that there are many employees who are very frustrated with their jobs.  While most individuals cannot afford to abandon their posts like Slater did, they can cheer on someone who publically demonstrated the angst they feel every day.

Digging deeper...it appears the frustration is most intense in the service industries (i.e. those jobs that involve directly serving the public).  In the U.S, there are a total of 150 million people with jobs, and 107 million of these individuals work in the service industry.  That’s a huge amount of collective frustration and it’s not hard to see why it occasionally bubbles over into the media when a focal point presents itself.

So, what can you learn from Slater’s tantrum to increase your recruiting effectiveness?  Here are some quick thoughts:

1. Connect with the Frustration People Feel in Their Jobs.  As you know, change is painful.  People do not make changes in their employment status unless the change of remaining in their current situation exceeds the pain of trying something new.  So, spend time asking questions about a candidate’s current situation to bring the pain to the surface.  What bothers them about their current job?  What other options have they tried in the past that have not worked out?  Where do they see themselves in five years if they remain on the same course?  Etc.
2. Tone Down the “Opportunity Speak.”  Managers are often too eager and thorough in describing the benefits of becoming a real estate agent. If there is too much of this opportunity speak too quickly in the conversation, the walls go up.  You’re talking, but the candidates are no longer listening because they feel like they are being sold something.  It is better to admit that being a real estate agent has its own set of struggles.  Realistic hope is kindled when the new struggles seem more bearable than the ones they’re experiencing right now.
3. Encourage Candidates to Take Small Steps.  As you find points of pain in the discussion, encourage the candidate to take small steps to remedy the pain.  For example, one of the common frustrations people feel in a dead-end job is boredom.  If a candidate is considering real estate for the first time, enrolling in a real estate school is a great way to learn if the new career has the potential to be more interesting and engaging. In most states, this is a small step (low cost, flexible) towards answering the question:  Does the topic of real estate really capture my interest? If the answer is yes, the next step will be even easier.

Like most people who grab their 15 minutes of fame, Steven Slater will soon be forgotten.  But, the frustration that many employees feel in their current situations will remain.  Tap into that frustration and you’ll gain an advantage over the competition and ultimately become a more savvy recruiter.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

6 Things You Need to Know to Successfully Address Compensation Issues

In our most recent discussions, I’ve attempted to provide some insight regarding how candidates who work in traditional jobs perceive the real estate industry.  When we talk about this topic, the elephant in the room is compensation.  How do you get an individual who is used to working in a “normal” occupation to quit his or her job and take on the risks that are inherent to working as a full commission real estate agent?

While this is a challenge, it is not impossible.  There are many talented people among the 13 million individuals who find themselves unemployed.  There are also an additional 26 million people who have jobs today, but are constantly looking to apply their talents to new career opportunities.  Many of these people have great skills, competencies, and motivation, but they’re frustrated, lack opportunity, or think they’ll find themselves unemployed in the near future due to circumstances they can’t control.

When the individuals in one of these two groups start to consider real estate as a possibility, the first and most significant obstacle that must be overcome is compensation.  Unless a person can see a clear and highly probable path for making income, there will be immediate resistance and most people will disengage--especially the talented ones.  Here are some ideas on keeping this from happening:

1. Discuss Compensation Early in the Conversation.  Acknowledging the issue and addressing it early in the conversation frees a person up to hear the rest of what you’re going to say during an interview.  It is not hard to say something like, “I bet your number one question about real estate is how you’re going to get paid for doing this kind of work…”  Avoiding the issue or waiting until the end of an interview to discuss compensation makes candidates think you have something to hide.
2. Answer the Most Common Questions Before They’re Asked.  The most talented people among us have more than one employment option.  They want to know whether the option you’re offering is better than the others they are considering.  They have questions like, “What percentage of the people who work with you make my desired level of compensation?”...“What are the obstacles that tripped up those who are not making it?”...“Do you have two or three people who I can talk with who were in my situation a year ago who are meeting their compensation goals today?”
3. Learn About The Candidate’s Other Options.  Ask questions about what else a candidate is considering for employment.  Talented people always have options, so if you can get a person to articulate these options you can start to have a fair discussion regarding whether real estate is right for them.  Try to maintain the perspective that you are an objective third party who is honestly trying to help the person make a good decision about their future.  Validating the existence and viability of other options is the best place to start.

Once a person feels heard and believes that you understand their circumstances, they are much more willing to consider the things you have to say.  There is still the hurdle of getting someone who is used to a normal salary with benefits to feel comfortable with a real estate compensation model.  Here are some ideas to help you over this obstacle:

1. Discuss the Decline of Traditional Jobs with Benefits.  As mentioned in an earlier post, about 30% of the workers in the United States now work as independent contractors, and this percentage is trending upwards quickly.  Some experts expect this level to exceed 50% in the next 15 to 20 years.  As the traditional job becomes scarce, opportunities to succeed will naturally follow this trend.  Teaching someone to operate in the independent contractor world is a valuable contribution you can make to an individual's career.
2. Discuss the Long Tradition Americans Have of Becoming Business Owners.  The U.S. Census Bureau reports that there are 23 million businesses in the United States.  Of this total, over 17 million are businesses that have zero employees.  Think about that number... There are about 17 million people who own their own business by themselves.  And these aren’t just goofy businesses, they contribute almost $1 trillion to the gross domestic product.  Use the paradigm of starting a business when you introduce someone to idea of becoming a real estate agent.  While such a change may still feel scary, it can make it seem more normal, doable, and even exciting.
3. Discuss the Idea of Duel Careers.  Many real estate companies resist hiring “part-time” agents.  This policy has some merit because there is a lot of data that suggests that those who work part-time do not maintain the necessary focus to be successful.  For the large majority of people who have been involved in real estate in the past, this has been true.  However, there is an emerging trend among working individuals that is worth noting: many of the most talented people in our society want to work more than one job for the sake of interest and flexibility.  The real estate industry has an opportunity to tap this resource in some new and exciting ways.  I’ll write more on this topic in a future blog, but for now be on the lookout for this issue when you interview highly talented individuals.

Compensation will always be one of the major issues in discussing any employment scenario.  Being able to discuss the issue with confidence, a sense of creativity, and hope, will increase your chances of hiring talented agents.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

What are Your "Competitors" Offering Your Candidates?

Last week, we started a discussion on how companies can more successfully attract talented individuals to the real estate industry.  When there is a limited number of people who are seeking out real estate careers on their own, the competition for new agents naturally has to grow beyond that small pool of candidates.  When this happens, a real estate company has to compete with traditional companies (i.e. companies that offer traditional jobs with salaries and benefits) for the attention of talented individuals.

Last week, I challenged you to find out what other companies are offering in the geographic region close to your office.  Did you do your homework?  Just in case you didn’t, I put together a couple of examples for you.

Our company (Tidemark) is located in Woodinville, WA.  This is a community just outside of Seattle.  As I search in my geographic area, here are a couple examples of what candidates are being offered:

1.  Email Marketing Manager, Classmates.com.  Classmates.com is one of the few “dot com” companies that survived over the last decade.  It appears to be a healthy company and has a good brand.  Here are the responsibilities for this position:

Manage the concept, development and execution of email marketing campaigns, including new feature notifications, segmented lifecycle campaigns, newsletter & triggered emails.

Partner with other members of the marketing team to develop new customer segmentation and contact strategies and act as the team’s resident expert of email.

Write effective, creative briefs that include campaign objectives and strategic messaging and work with our internal creative services to formulate compelling copy and design that ensures successful results.

Develop new messaging strategies that leverage the data we have on our members and provide business requirements to technical teams to construct more compelling, dynamic email.

What are the motivations of someone who would apply for this job?  The most obvious factor is the opportunity this position affords to someone who wants to make use of their marketing training and skills.  Someone who is attracted to this position would enjoy working in a team environment and interfacing with vendors (internal creative and technical service providers).  Additionally, a person who would be successful at this job would probably have a knack for understanding the needs and interests of customers.

Estimated pay for this position:  $50,000/year with full health benefits.

2. Customer Service Representative, Precor.  Have you ever went to the gym and used one of those elliptical trainers?  Most likely, it was made by Precor.  This company is also a healthy company that has a good brand and reputation.  Here are the responsibilities for this position:

Provides technical assistance to internal and external customers using both oral and written communication skills.  This includes diagnosing the problem and walking the customer through the solution.

Maintains contact with customer accounts and end-users through phone contact, email, faxes and correspondence.

Explains and administers company policies and procedures pertaining to customer service (e.g., warranty policy, parts credit, return policy, etc.)

Communicates effectively with customers (within Customer Support and other appropriate departments) on the status of current field failures, and assists in determining corrective action to ensure Precor customer satisfaction.

Assists customers with part orders through an on-line computer system, this includes data-entry of customer numbers, part numbers, quantity, etc.

A person who is attracted to this job will be someone who enjoys working with people to get problems solved.  The individual who is successful at this position would have to be a good listener and be willing to push through obstacles (both internal and external) in order to get good results.

Estimated pay:  $30,000/year with limited benefits.

Note:  Pay and benefit research was conducted through www.glassdoor.com.  Neither of the positions advertised contained detailed pay and benefit information in their job posting.

Speaking the Candidate’s Language

Hopefully, you’re starting to get the idea of what “normal” candidates experience as they look for a job.  As you consider this information, don’t get too caught up in the details.  Rather, spend your time trying to understand “the language” that the candidate is expecting to hear when they consider new employment.

More specifically, you need to be able to see things and answer questions from the customer’s perspective.  Candidates want to know…

• How do my skills and training specifically apply to what an agent does?
• Who am I going to be working with as an agent?  Am I going to like my manager and coworkers?
• Who, outside of the organization, am I going to be working with?
• Does your company have a great brand? (i.e. Will I want to tell my friends I work at your company?)
• As an agent, am I going to enjoy working with your company’s customers?

If you’re not crafting your message in terms that the candidate finds familiar, there is often a decisive breakdown in communication that develops.  The red flags quickly go up in a person’s mind and the talented people disengage.

It’s similar to the feeling you probably get when you attend a timeshare sales presentation.  You know that there are all kinds of normal people in the world taking normal vacations, but the salesperson is hell-bent on convincing you that all those other people are idiots and his unique model of vacationing is the only way to go.  At this point, you’re looking the for the door and wondering whether the two free nights in the hotel was really worth it!

While this kind of pressure and focus may work for timeshare sales, but it doesn’t work for employment.  Helping someone consider a range of fair options in terms a candidate is familiar with hearing is the formula for building trust and getting the most talented candidates to engage.

Next time, we’ll discuss how you can better compete with traditional companies on the issue of pay and benefits. 

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

Would a Smart, Talented, and Motivated Person Want to Work for You?

Last week, we discussed the coming trend in the employment market at large where the traditional “job with benefits” will become less available and employers will look to lower cost employment models to meet their needs.  The two most prominent models are (1) the independent contractor and (2) part-time employment with no benefits.  We then raised the question:  How do you position yourself to take advantage of this trend?

For a real estate company, this seems to be a tough question.  As I’ve spoken with real estate leaders over the last six months, I've learned that everyone wants to find ways to attract younger, more talented agents who are willing to dedicate those talents to the real estate industry.  But, there’s a disconnect.  These individuals are not choosing this option on their own, and they don’t seem overly interested in listening to the options a real estate company has to offer.

How can this be fixed?  The change in traditional employment will help, but that’s not enough.  Just because other options are not as appealing as they used to be does not necessarily mean that talented individuals will now choose to work with you.  Your option has to be superior (or at least equal) to the remaining options available.

This may sound like an oversimplified observation, but it is something that most real estate companies struggle to understand.  Part of the reason this blind spot exists is because real estate leaders do not have a perception of what employment options exist for young, talented individuals.  The belief is that competition for new hires primarily comes from other real estate firms.  This is not true.  The competition for new talent is between your firm and all the other non-real estate companies who can potentially hire people in your immediate geography.

Of course, this begs the question:  What employment options do talented individuals have within 20 miles of your real estate office(s)?  If you don’t know the answer to this question, you need to find out.  Once you find out, how does the employment opportunity you’re offering (becoming an agent) honestly stack-up against these other opportunities?  Be honest.  This is a more difficult question than it may seem.

There is a perception among real estate leaders that there are restrictions inherent to the real estate business model that make it difficult to compete with traditional companies.  While this is partially true, it is not a premise that the most successful leaders in the future will accept.  They know that if you ask people to make less-than-intelligent choices, they will only be able to attract B players. 

Next time, we’ll discuss what these options look like and how a real estate company can compete more successfully. 

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

Motivation Revisited: Six Kids in a Car for 7,000 Miles

Over the past couple of weeks, Dave has been making most of the contributions to WorkPuzzle, as I have been working remotely in the Midwest.  Now, he is off to Europe for a few weeks to visit his daughter who is working in London, and I’ll be writing the WorkPuzzle entries.  Hopefully, you’ll enjoy the extended focus each of us have/will put toward WorkPuzzle during the weeks in July.

The reason for my trip to the Midwest is a music tour I decided to embark on with my family.  Some of you know this already, but my family started a bluegrass band a few years ago.  We normally perform in the Northwest a few times per month, but this summer we decided to do a cross country trip from Seattle to Indianapolis.  By the time we’re done, we’ll have performed 12 times in various communities across the country.  (If you have an interest in reading more about the band, you can visit the band website at www.noteasilybrokenmusic.com.)  Since we perform during the evenings and weekends, I’ve been able to work remotely. 

The trip has been a lot of fun, and we’ve created some great memories along the way.  But, as we conceptualized the journey, I knew there would also be some challenges. One of those challenges was going to be getting my six kids to ride in the car for 7,000 miles without killing each other.  My wife, Sally, suspected it would be similar to those experiments she read about in her psychology classes where they put rats in very confined spaces and they eventually start eating each other!

To keep this from happening, Sally started planning months ahead of time.  Of course, we had all the normal tricks such as books on tape, videos, games, crafts, etc.  But, when boredom sets in, we knew it would still be tempting to take a little bite out of a sibling.  To head this off, she put a request out to her network for ideas to keep kids occupied and civil during long car rides.

While she received many ideas, one in particular caught her attention.  It was provided by a mom who has eight kids and regularly takes trips across the country.  This woman had devised an incentive system whereby her kids could earn quarters for good behavior in the car.  Here’s how it worked:  Each child was presented with two rolls of quarters ($20), but they could not claim their quarters until the midpoint of the trip.  During the trip, if relational offenses (rudeness, disrespect, physical harm, etc.) were committed, one or more quarters would be deducted from their account.  So, at the halfway point in the trip, they could potentially earn $20 for good behavior.  The process would then be repeated for the return trip.

Now this all sounded good and we’ll try almost anything when it comes to parenting, but I did notice that this incentive system was at odds with what I had recently learned about motivation from Daniel Pink’s work (see previous blogs 1,2,3).  Research demonstrates that “carrot and stick” incentive systems are not effective.  In addition to having a little peace in the car, I was curious to see if we could defy the research.  Do those researchers really know what they’re talking about anyway?

Unfortunately, for my wife and I, they do.  We’ve now crossed the midpoint in the trip, so we held a “results ceremony” at lunch with our extended family last Sunday.  The results were not good.  Of the 480 quarters available, only 248 were claimed by our kids.  This means that there were 232 offenses committed over 3,500 miles.  I bet you’re glad that you were not in the car with us over the last three weeks!

If you dig into the data a little bit further, it’s even worse than it appears.  For three of the kids (I won’t name names), 124 out of 180 quarters were lost due to poor behavior.  Of course, these were the particular kids who we were hoping the incentive system would have the most impact on.  Where we needed behavior modification most, we had a failure rate of nearly 70%.  I knew we were in trouble when one of my boys said, “Dad, nice try on this quarter system.  The way I see it, this is just a way for me to be able to commit 80 free offenses.  I don’t really need the money.”  He said this about three hours into the trip!

So, science again triumphs over the well-intentioned schemes of desperate parents.  So...if “carrot and stick” incentive systems don’t work, what does?  The researchers are right on this account as well.  Inspiring individuals to personally buy into a meaningful purpose is what produces outstanding behaviors.  When it came to the band performances, there was a single event to which the entire family could focus.  With this goal, the negative behaviors generally disappeared.  Interestingly, the more important and difficult gigs were, the higher the level of focus and good behavior.

Hopefully, you can see how these principles could apply to the team you manage.  As for producing good behavior in the car, I’m still working on that…  

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

Forget What You’ve Learned From Motivational Speakers: Doubt Yourself

How many times have you attended one of those motivational seminars where the presenter attempts to "pump you up" with the belief that greatness resides inside of you?  And, all you have to do is convince yourself (through self-talk) that it is there, and it will be "released" into your life.

 

As you might have suspected, positive self-talk is not as effective as your motivational guru promised.  In fact, you may do better doubting yourself, rather than trying to talk yourself toward greatness. 

 

A few months ago, I wrote a series (1,2,3) on Daniel Pink’s latest book called Drive.  If you haven’t read these articles, you may want to catch up on his compelling discoveries concerning motivation.  Pink recently uncovered another research study that defies conventional wisdom on this topic.

 

This study was reported in the London Telegraph over the weekend and was originally conducted at the University of Illinois. 

"In a nifty set of experiments, three social scientists explored the differences between what they call 'declarative' self-talk (I will fix it!) and 'interrogative' self-talk (Can I fix it?).  They began by presenting a group of participants with some anagrams to solve (for example, rearranging the letters in 'sauce' to spell 'cause'.)

But before the participants tackled the problem, the researchers asked one half of them to take a minute to ask themselves whether they would complete the task – and the other half to tell themselves that they would complete the task.

The results?  The self-questioning group solved significantly more anagrams than the self-affirming group."

In a second, follow-up study, the initial finding was validated by the results of a new experiment:

"We told participants that we were interested in people's handwriting practices.  With this pretence, participants were given a sheet of paper to write down 20 times one of the following word pairs:  Will I, I will, I, or Will.  Then they were asked to work on a series of 10 anagrams in the same way participants in Experiment One did.

 

The outcome was the same.  People 'primed' with Will I solved nearly twice as many anagrams as people in the other three groups.  In subsequent experiments, the basic pattern held.  Those who approached a task with questioning self-talk did better than those who began with affirming self-talk.

 

‘Setting goals and striving to achieve them assumes, by definition, that there is a discrepancy between where you are and where you want to be.  When you doubt, you probably achieve the right mindset,‘ explained one of the researchers.  ‘In addition, asking questions forces you to define if you really want something and probably think about what you want, even in the presence of obstacles.'"

These findings have a direct and immediate application to your business.  If you have responsibility for coaching those on your team, teach them to ask questions about their abilities and to contemplate their chances of success.  

"People who ask questions come from a more humble place, which creates space to come up with a deeper solution.  In other words, questions open and declarations close.  We need both, of course.  But that initial tincture of honest doubt turns out to be more powerful than a bracing shot of certainty."

If you are a hiring manager, integrate this principle into your interviews.  Ask your candidates how they approach difficult tasks.  If you get back a response that highlights their bravado...it’s a red flag.  Those who are truly successful will likely be more humble.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

Anecdotal Discoveries: Self-Interest is a Powerful Motivator

Most of what we share on WorkPuzzle is based on research and the scientific findings of professionals who have published what they’ve learned.  I learn a lot by studying these sources, but I also learn from personal experience and the happenstance of life.  Today, I’ll share a principle I discovered many years ago, but saw play out in living color in a recent exchange with some of my family members.

A couple of weeks ago, one of our family’s cell phones went missing.  It happened to be the phone that my older boys share.  It is what we call a “community phone.”  The idea is that one of the boys can grab it before they head out of the house for some event.  When it is not being used, it is supposed to reside on a shelf next to where we keep the car keys.  So, when it got lost, I immediately got the “I didn’t have it last...” comments (almost in unison) from my sons.  

This isn’t the first time the phone has been lost and no one seemed to be motivated to find it (myself included).....until this week.  My oldest son is flying to Baltimore on Friday for a college-prep seminar and needs to take the phone with him.  With this event looming, my wife became motivated to find the phone… "I’m not sending my son across the country, by himself without a phone!"  So, now one person has started to look for the missing phone.

To assist my overworked wife (I was still not motivated enough to actually help her search myself), I announced at the breakfast table on Monday that if someone did not find the phone by Wednesday evening, I was going to be forced to buy a new phone....and, my sons would have to pay for the replacement!

I thought this would get them moving, but surprisingly, it produced no action.  I think it was a combination of Wednesday being a long way from Monday (at least in a teenager’s mind) and the hope that this unfortunate turn of events would result in them getting a new, “cooler” phone—even if it did cost them a little money.

By Tuesday morning, there was still no noticeable effort towards finding the phone.  So, I was very pleased when my 8-year old daughter approached me with an unrelated request:  “Dad, I need to earn some money.  Do you have any jobs that I could do?”  Of course, I jumped on this opportunity and offered her $5 if she could find the phone.  Now, she was motivated!  She rifled through every coat pocket, backpack, and drawer in the house.  She left quite a mess behind her, but still no phone surfaced.

At dinner on Tuesday, I announced that there was only one day left to find the phone before I purchased a new one at their expense.  I also added some well-meant chiding about taking care of your belongings, managing resources carefully, and paying attention to details.  While this was all good information, it wasn’t sparking the motivation that I'd hoped for.  Then, something interesting happened:  My 15-year old son, after politely waiting for my phone monologue to finish, asked me a question:  “Dad, would it be OK if I went to my friend’s graduation party on Sunday?”  

Granting this request meant that I’d have to drive him to a nearby town and back, so he needed my help.  At this point, I again recognized an opportunity to create phone searching motivation.  So, I told him that if he could find the phone before Wednesday night, he could go to the party.

For the first time since we started working on this problem, he actually put some mental effort towards finding the phone.  In fact, he closed his eyes and thought hard for about a minute.  Then, he looked up and said:  “The phone is in my fly fishing vest in our storage locker.”  Sure enough, that’s where it was!

Here is the principle:  Self-interest is a powerful motivator.  In this case, neither financial penalties, nor financial gains produced enough motivation among the family to solve the problem.  Only when I tapped my son’s unique self-interest (need for social interaction), was his motivation finally sparked.  Not only was it sparked, it was engaged in such a powerful way that it resulted in him solving the problem with an amazing amount of speed and effectiveness.

Think about ways that you could be engaging the self-interests of those you manage, coach, and even recruit.  Resist the temptation to formulate universal incentives—the impact of these programs will be limited.  Instead, spend time discovering the unique self-interests of those you hope to motivate.  While you don’t want to use this information to wrongly manipulate, you can develop a healthy partnership between helping individuals get their personal needs met and generating motivation to address the greater good.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

The Art of Asking Questions

A couple of weeks ago, Dave Mashburn wrote a series of blogs to help you increase your success when interviewing new real estate candidates.  If you have not had a chance to read these yet (1, 2, 3), I would encourage you to do so—there is a lot of great information packed into these discussions.

This appears to be an issue that bedevils a lot of people.  I spoke with a real estate owner just last week who was struggling with the issue of convincing a candidate to come on board while she was simultaneously considering an offer made by his competitor. 

In this case, the competitor had done a great job of framing the decision around the fee structure (i.e. the overhead) necessary to be part of a real estate office.  Since the competitor was the low cost option in this category, the candidate was leaning toward joining the competitor’s office.

At this point, most hiring managers will tend to be on their heels.  How do you convince a candidate to get his/her focus off of the minor issue of fees and consider the bigger picture?  That is, without sounding defensive?

Try asking questions.  Not just any questions, but questions that are designed to move the discussion from a conflict between you and the candidate, to a conflict that exists only in the candidate’s brain.  Ideally, you want to facilitate the discussion that the candidate is having with herself until the conflict is resolved.

This isn’t as hard as you may think.  Business consultant, Steve Roesler, recently offered some simple insight that I think is helpful on this topic.

“When you keep announcing the righteousness of your position, the problem defines you.  When you respond with a question, both of you begin defining the problem and looking for solutions.  Which do you want?

Here are four model questions that will help you stay above the fray:  

• 'If this doesn't meet your requirements (criteria, needs), what can be done to ensure that it does?'
• 'If you like the idea but not the related cost, what can we do about the budget constraints?'
• 'If we can't start the project now, when do you think it would be a good time to get it going?'
• 'If you don't want to change anything and think the procedures are fine the way they are, what is it that you like about how they work now?'

You get the idea.  The first part of the question acknowledges that you heard the issue;  the second invites action from the other person.  That way, you stay out of 'argument' mode and create an environment where the responsibility for a solution is a mutual effort.”

Try crafting some questions that address the objections your candidates will likely bring up.  Practice saying them a few times before your interview so that they don’t sound canned.  And then give it a try.  Maybe you’ll be successful at tapping your inner psychologist!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below. 

Social Networking and Recruiting - Part 3: Making a Contribution

We’ll wrap up our discussion regarding social networking and recruiting today with some insight from Omowale Casselle, a contributor to the Electronic Recruiting Exchange’s blog network.

In the previous two posts on this topic (1,2), we learned about some of the major boundaries associated with social networking (i.e. what doesn’t work), and how “relational currency” is necessary to be a legitimate part of any social network.  This still doesn’t give us much direction regarding how we should conduct ourselves concerning the regular input we offer to our social networks—especially as it relates to recruiting.

Casselle suggests our interactions on social networks have the following characteristics:

1. Be Present.  This means establishing a presence on sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & niche) that are important to your target audience.  For each site that you join, you are going to have to spend lots of time establishing your presence.  If you do your homework, you should be able to identify 3-5 sites that are most relevant to your target audience.
2. Be Knowledgeable.  Recruiting is largely driven by the exchange of relevant information.  Both employers and candidates are looking to learn more information about each other to establish fit.  Based on your target audience, you should be prepared to highlight the major benefits of your industry, organization, and specific openings as well as respond to likely areas of candidate concern.
3. Be Helpful.  As more and more people are connecting with one another on the social web, it is important to establish yourself as someone who can be helpful.  If candidates have a question, do you quickly respond to it or do you ignore it?  If a colleague is struggling with the implementation of some new technology that you have mastered, do you reach out and offer assistance, or do you let them struggle for the solution on their own?  With all the talk around interaction and engagement, one of the major ways to establish a great reputation is to help others without expectation of reciprocity.
4. Be Social.  When you see an interesting blog post, tweet, or status update - dive in.  Don't let fear of what others might think about your thoughts inhibit you from socially engaging with others.  Expand your social network, reach out to people with peripheral but related interests.  In no time, you will start to see just how interconnected different ideas and concepts are.
5. Be Aware.  There are a variety of written and unwritten rules to social engagement.  WRITING IN ALL CAPS, only tweeting about job openings, or discussing your personal relationship status on Facebook are typically frowned upon.  However, there are also things that are not yet well-established that may be detrimental to your social recruiting efforts.  Are you always negative?  Do you only discuss or share content consistent with your point of view on a subject?  Before you engage with others using social media or social networks, take a moment to think about how your target audience will receive it.
6. Be Yourself.  Even though there might be a temptation to create an idealized image of yourself on the web (complete with amazing profile picture and embellished accomplishments), it isn't going to work.  In fact, the more you try to become someone you aren't, the more people you are looking to build relationships with will shy away.  By letting people know who you really are, you can start to truly build some real relationships.
7. Be Authentic.  No one wants to engage with someone who constantly argues point of views that they don't agree with.  If you truly don't agree with something, then by all means jump into the conversation and express your disagreement.  But, don't pretend to be against technology based recruiting while constantly tweeting job openings at your company.  If you do, you will quickly lose all credibility.  The main reason is that lots of users have a variety of interests, and they will begin to track people of interest to see what they have to say on a variety of forums.

This is good advice, but you may also notice it’s a lot of work.  For some, this type of “work” is going to feel natural and enjoyable, but for others it will be a burden.  If you’re in the first group, social networking can and should have a significant impact on how you recruit. 

If you’re in the second group, you’ll find that you’ll only be able to “push this uphill” for a short while.  Your energy toward social netoworking will quickly diminish and you won’t be able to consistently make the contributions necessary to be successful.  Rather than beating yourself up, I would recommend finding other areas where you can make contributions that are more in line with your talents.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Ben Hess.  Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.